Free A Story of Now by Emily O'Beirne

but she didn’t expect anything as hard-core as that. “How do you even have a life?”
    “I honestly don’t know.” Mia puts her glasses in their case and shoves them into her bag. “Actually, I do know. I don’t have a life,” she declares. “I live at home with my parents so I can afford to exist on one or two shifts a week at the café during the semesters. And I only go out on weekends.”
    “Sounds kind of sad.”
    “I love it, secretly. Well, except for the lack of social life. What about you? I didn’t realise you were studying here.”
    “Arts. French and English lit.” Claire sits up because Mia looks as though she’s about to leave. “Just to keep my parents off my back while I figure out what I actually want to do. If I study, I can stay at home and I don’t have to pay rent.”
    “Fair enough.”
    “Are you going to be a surgeon, like on Grey’s Anatomy ?”
    “Not sure yet.” Mia shakes her head. “Medicine would be cool. I’d also love to do forensics. I have to decide.”
    “Forensics is dead people, right? CSI stuff? Why would anyone want to work with corpses?”
    “Why is it everyone references TV shows when they ask about it?” Mia ignores the last question and slides her books into her huge bag. “But yeah, kind of like that, but not at all.”
    “Why are you studying medicine, then, if you’re going to work with dead bodies? Makes zero sense to me.”
    “Because they have the same parts as live ones, dummy.”
    Claire shrugs. Whatever. She’s newly impressed by this information. She wouldn’t have pictured Mia picking that for a career. She seems so…sunny. Doing something geeky like science, yes, that explains all the study. But forensics? That’s kind of creepy-cool.
    “And I can’t do any of those things until I finish this degree. Then I’ll probably have to do another.”
    “Wow. How long will you be studying?”
    “Forever.” Mia plays with the silver chain around her neck, the same one with the long silver pendant she wore the night Claire first met her.
    “Couldn’t you have done something easier?” Claire picks up a dead leaf and crushes it between her fingers. “I’ve heard undertaking is a good, reliable career. And you’d still get to be with the corpses.”
    “That’s exactly what my dad said just last week.” Mia laughs as she does up the clasps on her bag.
    “They aren’t doctors?” Claire wonders if Mia is also following a family tradition like she’s expected to.
    “Nope, Dad does research—climate change stuff—and Mum teaches biology.”
    “Oh.” Claire wrinkles her nose. “Wow, that’s quite a tradition of geekdom. You’re just one-upping them, I guess?”
    “I suppose.” Mia doesn’t appear to be even slightly bothered by Claire’s teasing. “I don’t know. I love it.”
    “You’d have to. I cannot even imagine what you people do for all those years at uni. I mean, do you really just cut up people and look at their insides all day?” She suddenly re-assesses. “Actually, that’d be kind of cool.”
    “Sometimes.” Mia stands and brushes the grass off the back of her jeans. “No cutting people up today. It’s a lecture, but it’s a pretty awesome one. What are you doing now?”
    “Uh, nothing? Being a hungover, futureless arts student until it’s time to go to my crappy job?”
    “Come with me?” Mia grins, a challenge in her brown eyes.
    Claire looks at her, eyebrow raised. “To a lecture?” Claire says it as if it’s a dirty word. She’s already suffered a lecture today in a language she can understand.
    “You’ll like this one. I promise.”
    Claire tips her head, eyes narrowed, amazed she’s even considering it. “Is the lecture theatre comfy? Can I nap if I get bored?”
    “Sure.”
    “Why not?” Claire surprises herself by climbing to her feet. “Can I bring my coffee?”
    “ Your coffee?” Mia raises her eyebrows. “You can bring anything.” She drags her heavy bag onto a shoulder